Thomas Knutson receives a voicemail from NOAA public affairs officer Kent Laborde asking him if he would be interested in appearing on an MSNBC talk show to discuss hurricanes and climate change. The journal Nature has just published an article (see August 1, 2005) linking rising sea temperatures to hurricane intensity and MSNBC wants to interview Knutson who has published research on that topic (see September 28, 2004). Knutson decides to contact the show directly, since it is a weekend and Laborde is probably not at the office. He agrees to appear on the show and asks that MSNBC contact Laborde Monday morning. But on Monday morning, Laborde tells Knutson that the White House objects to the appearance. “White House said ‘no,’” he explains. Laborde adds that he has already called MSNBC to cancel his appearance. He told the show that Knutson was too tired for the interview because of a trip he had taken over the weekend. [Union of Concern Scientists and Government Accountability Project, 1/30/2007, pp. 30 ]

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) receives several requests for expert comments on a recent paper by climate scientist Kerry Emanuel (see August 1, 2005) suggesting that rising sea temperatures are resulting in stronger hurricanes. According to documents later obtained by the Government Accountability Project, the NOAA’s public affairs office redirects all requests for questions about Emanuel’s study, as well as all requests for interviews with federal climate scientist Knutson, to Chris Landsea, a scientist who does not believe there is a link between hurricane intensity and global warming (see July 27, 2005). [Union of Concern Scientists and Government Accountability Project, 1/30/2007, pp. 30 ] By August 1, Landsea will have participated in four such “routine, but sensitive” interviews. [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 12 ]

The journal Nature publishes an article by MIT climatologist Kerry Emanuel suggesting that rising sea temperatures are producing stronger hurricanes. His study found that a combined measure of duration and wind speeds among North Atlantic hurricanes and North Pacific cyclones has almost doubled since the 1970s. “The best way to put it is that storms are lasting longer at high intensity than they were 30 years ago,” says Emanuel. [Emanuel, 2005; USA Today, 7/31/2005]

After Thomas Karl, director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), receives an interview request on the topic of “intense rainfall events/intense hurricanes and global warming,” he is instructed by NOAA public affairs officer John Leslie to have the journalist speak with him first. Leslie tells Karl in an email, “Please have [the journalist] contact me by phone [redacted] or email. I’ll run this by those who need to know.” The email is also sent to Kent Laborde, another NOAA public affairs officer. [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 30 ]

NOAA public affairs officer Jana Goldman works with agency scientists on a press release about a forthcoming paper co-authored by Richard Feely, an NOAA scientist employed at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. The paper, to be published in the journal Nature, presents evidence that increased carbon dioxide levels are increasing the acidity of oceans and lowering the level of calcium carbonate saturation. Lower levels of calcium carbonate pose a threat to marine organisms, such as corals and some plankton, which need the compound to maintain their calcium carbonate exoskeletons. A colleague of Feely, Pieter Tans, says of the paper: “The association of ocean acidification with high atmospheric CO2 is about as solid as it gets.” But the press release, which would have coincided with the publishing of the study, is blocked by “higher-ups.” Tans tells the Government Accountability Project, “It appeared that NOAA didn’t want to be associated with it, even though they had reason to be proud of a good paper.” [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 32 ]

David Hofmann, a lab director at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), asks scientists who will be attending the Seventh International Carbon Dioxide Conference in Boulder not to use the term “climate change” in conference papers’ titles and abstracts. According to Pieter Tans, one of the participants, he and the other scientists ignore the request. [Washington Post, 4/6/2006]

National Weather Service (NWS) Regional Public Affairs Director Jim Teet sends an email to employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) informing them that all requests for contact from the national media must “now receive prior approval by” the Commerce Department. According to the memo, when a media request is made, employees must obtain the “name of the reporter and their affiliation; [t]heir deadline and contact phone number; [n]ame of individual being requested for the interview and purpose of the interview; [a]dditional background about the interview subject, and expertise of requested interviewee on this subject,” and then provide this information to the NWS press office. From there, the request shall be forwarded to the Commerce Department’s public relations office, whose staff will then decide how to handle the media request. According to an unnamed NOAA employee, “prior to this policy change, if a media organization called our office (or any other National Weather Service office) and wanted an interview, we would do our best to accommodate the request as quickly as possible. While often such requests are from local media, local offices do get requests from national media if a weather event is big enough to be a national story.” But NOAA Public Affairs Director Jordan St. John insists that “the policy has been in existence all along,” and that he had rewritten it in June 2004 (see June 28, 2004) with lawyers and Commerce Department policymakers. But NOAA employees tell the Raw Story that they had never been informed of these restrictions before, and some suggest that the timing of Teet’s email may be related to the political impact of hurricane Katrina. According to Raw Story, there is a substantial difference between the June 2004 policy and the one emailed by Teet. “[T]he emailed policy states that routine contact with national media outlets has to be pre-cleared with the Commerce Department, requiring extensive information about the journalist and media outlet [while] [t]he media policy St. John provided does not stipulate such restrictions on interacting with national media. Nor does it state that the Commerce Department must approve media requests,” Raw Story reports. [Raw Story, 10/4/2005; New Republic, 2/11/2006; Union of Concern Scientists and Government Accountability Project, 1/30/2007, pp. 31 ]

NOAA officials push to alter the language of a paper NOAA research scientist Pieter Tans will be presenting at the Seventh International Carbon Dioxide Conference in Boulder, Colorado. In his draft abstract, Tans explains how his research suggests that carbon dioxide plays the role of a “forcing agent” in climate change. “CO2 is now generally recognized to be the main driver of climate change,” the draft reads. But people in the public affairs office, or their superiors, edit the abstract down. They also attempt to purge Tans’ presentation of the term “climate change” (see also Late September 2005). [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 68-69 ]

Journalist Brian O’Malley contacts NOAA climate scientist Thomas Knutson to request an interview for an op-ed piece he is working on that will be published in the New York Times. Knutson forwards the request to NOAA public affairs officer Jana Goldman, who then checks with NOAA Public Affairs Director Jordan St. John. In her email to St. John, she concludes, “Knutson and I are concerned that Knutson’s science may be used to advance a policy position.” St. John responds, “Can you call [redacted] back and quiz him on what he’s working on. If it sounds a bit untowards, you can always just refer him to Tom’s paper and let me [sic] make his own characterizations.” Goldman replies, “Just spoke to him—he just wants to better understand the science—he is not looking to link an individual with a point of view.” St. John tells her to reject the request. “Take a pass,” he says. “We’ll deal with media requests but let’s not open the door to others.” [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 21 ]

Talking points distributed by the NOAA public affairs office to the Climate Program Office and the State Department include a statement asserting, “NOAA supports the view that there is no verifiable link between observed climate change and the intensity and frequency of the most recent Atlantic hurricane season.” An unnamed source later interviewed by the Government Accountability Project, says, with regard to the talking points, “I remember that this was about the time NOAA HQ stopped asking for input from our scientists on the topic and the answers seemed to be coming from mysterious sources.” [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 43 ]

Robert Atlas, director of Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), issues a laboratory-wide email instructing staff to review the NOAA media policy that had been issued in June 2004 (see June 28, 2004). Atlas writes that “one important change from the current AOML policy is that Commerce Public Affairs has asked to be made aware of all media interview requests—especially those pertaining to Katrina and Rita.” [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 16 ]

The NOAA implements a new policy requiring that “information and materials” and “meetings or phone calls with congressional representatives or staff and presentations where congressional staff have been invited or can reasonably be expected to attend must be cleared through OAR [Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research] headquarters and sent up through the NOAA Office of Legislative Affairs.” [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 45 ]

Thomas Knutson, a research meteorologist with the agency’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, NJ, recieves an interview request from CNBC television for its program “On the Money.” Knutson forwards the request to NOAA public affairs officer Kent Laborde for approval, as is required by NOAA’s media policy (see September 29, 2005). Laborde then directs the request to Chuck Fuqua, deputy director of communications at the Department of Commerce, who asks: “What is Knutson’s position on global warming vs. decadal cycles? Is he consistent with [Gerry] Bell and [Chris] Landsea?” (Bell and Chris have views that are more in line with the Bush administration’s position on global warming) Laborde then calls Knutson and asks him about his views on the future trend of Atlantic hurricane activity. Laborde then writes to Fuqua, saying that “he is consistent, but a bit of a different animal. He isn’t on the meteorological side. He’s purely a numerical modeler. He takes existing data from observation and projects forward. His take is that even with worse [sic] case projections of green house gas concentrations, there will be a very small increase in hurricane intensity that won’t be realized until almost 100 years from now.” Two minutes later Fuqua responds, “Why can’t we have one of the other guys on then?” Knutson is then informed that the interview request has been declined. [Wall Street Journal, 2/16/2006; Union of Concern Scientists and Government Accountability Project, 1/30/2007, pp. 30 ]

The US Department of Commerce’s deputy director of communications, Chuck Fuqua, approves a request from the media for an interview with NOAA hurricane researcher Chris Landsea. Landsea believes that global warming has little or no impact on hurricanes. Notwithstanding, Fuqua says in an email to a NOAA official, “Please be careful and make sure Chris is on his toes. Since [redacted] went off the menu, I’m a little nervous on this, but trust he’ll hold the course.” A week later, Fuqua grants a request for Landsea to appear on the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. In an email concerning the interview, Fuqua writes, “Please make sure Chris is on message and that it is a friendly discussion.” When Richard Mills, the department’s director of public affairs, is later asked by Salon what Fuqua meant by “stay on message,” Mills explains, “Chuck just meant that Chris should be ready and prepared.” [Salon, 9/19/2006]

Chuck Fuqua, deputy director of communications at the Department of Commerce, rejects a request for an interview with climate scientist Chris Landsea. The request is from an Orlando Sentinel reporter who wants to discuss the issue of “why so many Cat..5s/global warming?” Explaining his decision, Fuqua writes, “I’d prefer that we not do this while dealing with a hurricane coming at us.” [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 69 ]

A reporter with National Geographic magazine contacts Ronald Stouffer, senior research meteorologist at the NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, and asks him to comment on a study on melting Arctic sea ice. Stouffer tells the reporter that he needs to obtain permission from the public affairs office before he can respond. Stouffer sends the request to public affairs officer Jana Goldman, who writes in response, “I know the DoC [Department of Commerce] is going to ask—well, what is his position…. So can you give me an idea of how you might respond?” The public affairs office does not make a decision on the interview request until after the reporter’s deadline. [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 17 ]

NOAA public affairs officer Carmeyia Gillis mentions in an email to colleagues Kent Laborde, Jana Goldman, and John Leslie that media inquiries submitted to the Climate Prediction Center concerning climate change should first be cleared by senior political administrators James R. Mahoney or Ahsha Tribble. [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 17 ]

NOAA public affairs officer Jana Goldman sends an email to superiors requesting blanket approval for a number of interview requests that scientist Tom Delworth has received from the media. All the requests pertain to the same climate change-related topic. But NOAA Public Affairs Director Jordan St. John rejects her request and says that each interview needs to be considered separately. “There are no blanket answers. Each one has to be dealt with as we get it,” he says. [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 26 ]

The November issue of NOAA Magazine (a publication of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) reports, “There is consensus among NOAA hurricane researchers and forecasters that recent increases in hurricane activity are primarily the result of natural fluctuations in the tropical climate system known as the tropical multi-decadal signal.” [NOAA Magazine, 11/29/2005] In December, Kerry Emanuel, a climate researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who believes that hurricanes are becoming more severe because of rising temperatures, tells a roomful of University of Rhode Island scientists that the NOAA report had censored the views of government scientists who believe there is a link between hurricane intensity and climate change. [Wall Street Journal, 2/16/2006; Providence Journal, 3/26/2006] In February, the Wall Street Journal will similarly report that despite what NOAA contended, several of the agency’s scientists “believed man-made warming was a key cause.” The day before the Journal’s report is published, the NOAA will issue a correction stating that the consensus “represents the views of some NOAA hurricane researchers and forecasters, but does not necessarily represent the views of all NOAA scientists.” [NOAA Magazine, 11/29/2005; Wall Street Journal, 2/16/2006]

The George C. Marshall Institute publishes a book titled, Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming. In its press release announcing the book, the institute says the book “demonstrates the remarkable disparities between so-called ‘consensus documents’ on global warming… and climate reality.” The book, edited by longtime climate contrarian Patrick Michaels, a meteorologist, features essays contributed by Sallie Baliunas, Robert Balling, Randall S. Cerveny, John Christy, Robert E. Davis, Oliver W. Frauenfeld, Ross McKitrick, Eric S. Posmentier, and Willie Soon. Michaels is affiliated with at least ten organizations that have been funded by ExxonMobil and the Marshall Institute has received some $630,000 from ExxonMobil in support of its climate change program (see Between 1998 and 2005). [George C. Marshall Institute, 12/14/2005; Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, pp. 12 ]

In its yearly report on glaciers, the Austrian Alpenverein, or Alpine Club, documents the melting of glaciers in the Alps. In the winter of 2005 and 2006, the length of 97 glaciers out of the 105 observed was reduced. [Patzelt, 4/2/2007, pp. 20-25 ]

NOAA Public Affairs Director Jordan St. John says in an email that he has rejected a request for an NOAA scientist to participate in a debate. “I talked to producer [sic],” St. John says. “They are setting this up to a debate on whether there is global warming. I told John to call her back and say thanks, but not [sic] thanks.” [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 17 ]

The Chinese Academy of Sciences reports that Tibet’s glaciers are melting at an increasingly quick pace and will decrease in size by 50 percent every decade. Over the last 20 years, the country’s average temperature has increased by 2 degrees Fahrenheit. The plateau’s 46,298 glaciers, which cover almost 60,000 square miles, provide water to 300 million people in China alone. According to the academy, the melting of the glaciers will result in an “ecological catastrophe.” The region will suffer more droughts and sandstorms and the tundra will turn into a desert. Many of the world’s largest rivers will be devastated. “The melting glaciers will ultimately trigger more droughts, expand desertification and increase sand storms,” says Dong Guangrong, a spokesperson for the academy. [Xinhua News Agency, 2/5/2006; Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2/27/2006; Independent, 5/7/2006]

NASA quietly terminates the Deep Space Climate Observatory, a program that would have provided scientists with a way to continuously monitor Earth’s energy balance. According to Robert L. Park, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland, data obtained by the observatory would have helped scientists develop a better understanding of global warming. The observatory, named Triana, was the brainchild of former Vice President Al Gore. Its launch, scheduled for 2001, was put on hold by the Bush administration, which ridiculed the project as “Gore’s screen saver.” Gore had suggested that the program could stream video footage of the earth into classrooms so students could watch the earth’s weather systems live from space. NASA says it decided to terminate the project because of “competing priorities.” Launching the satellite would have cost only $100 million. [New York Times, 1/15/2006] In 2004, President Bush announced that one of his administration’s space priorities would be to begin a program that would send manned space flights to the moon by 2020, and eventually to Mars.
(see January 11, 2004)

David Hofmann, a lab director at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, informs research scientist Pieter Tans that anything having to do with climate change has to be cleared by the White House, including his laboratory’s website content. The deputy director will also inform Tans of this policy. [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 69 ]

Dr. James Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a top climate scientist, reveals that the Bush administration ordered NASA’s public affairs staff to review his lectures, papers, Web site postings, and interview requests after he gave a lecture calling for the reduction of greenhouse gases linked to global warming. “They feel their job is to be the censor of information going out to the public,” Hansen says, and he promises to ignore the restrictions. NASA denies trying to silence Hansen, saying the restrictions apply to all NASA officials, and adds that it is inappropriate for government scientists to make policy statements (see Between June 2003 and October 2003, (January 2006), and (Late January 2006)). [Savage, 2007, pp. 106] This is not the first time Hansen has gone public about government attempts to censor and muzzle him and his fellows (see October 2004, October 26, 2004, and February 10, 2006).

A National Public Radio producer calls NASA to request an interview with climate scientist James Hansen. The call is taken by George C. Deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer. Deutsch rejects the request reportedly telling the producer that NPR is “the most liberal” media outlet in the US and that his job is “to make the president look good.” Deutsch denies making the remarks. [New York Times, 1/29/2006] Deutch, 24, was appointed to NASA’s public affairs office in Washington in 2005 after working on the president’s re-election campaign and inaugural committee. He will be fired from him job on February 8 after it emerges that his resume on file wrongly states that he had graduated from Texas A&M University in 2003. [New York Times, 2/8/2006]

NASA officials attempt to discourage Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin from interviewing James E. Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, for an article she is doing about global warming. The officials say that Hansen can only speak on the record “if an agency spokeswoman listen[s] in on the conversation,” Eilperin reports. [Washington Post, 1/29/2006]

NASA quietly changes its mission statement, from, “To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers… as only NASA can,” to, “To pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research.” NASA spokesman David E. Steitz says the change reflects President Bush’s goal of pursuing human spaceflight to the Moon and Mars (see January 11, 2004). Some NASA scientists are angered by the change, which was implemented without consulting the agency’s 19,000 employees or giving them advance notice. According to NASA scientists, the phrase “understand and protect” played an important role in determining the agency’s research priorities. “Without it, these scientists say, there will be far less incentive to pursue projects to improve understanding of terrestrial problems like climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions,” the New York Times reports. Philip B. Russell, a 25-year NASA veteran who is an atmospheric chemist at the Ames Research Center, says, “We refer to the mission statement in all our research proposals that go out for peer review, whenever we have strategy meetings. As civil servants, we’re paid to carry out NASA’s mission. When there was that very easy-to-understand statement that our job is to protect the planet, that made it much easier to justify this kind of work.” [New York Times, 7/22/2006]

Flowchart showing NOAA’s review process for press releases [Source: Government Accountability Project] (click image to enlarge)A February 2006 NOAA document features a flowchart outlining the review process that news releases must go through before they are published. According to the flowchart, the press release is submitted and reviewed by several layers of bureaucracy within the NOAA and the Department of Commerce. As a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists will note, “a successful press release must pass review by several entities that primarily serve political and public relations functions, and scientists do not have a right of final review to ensure scientific accuracy of the final product.” [Union of Concern Scientists and Government Accountability Project, 1/30/2007, pp. 32 ] In April 2006, Ronald Stouffer, a senior NOAA research meteorologist, will say he “stopped trying to get press releases out” because of the difficulty of explaining the science to the agency’s public affairs officers and because of the complexity of the approval process. [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 28 ]

David Shukman, a science correspondent with the BBC, requests another interview with Pieter Tans, a research scientist at the NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory (see October 2004-March 24, 2005 for the first interview). The request is granted only on the condition that NOAA press officer Kent Laborde is present during the interview. Laborde has to fly out to the interview location from Washington, DC. When Tans asks Laborde if he is required to report on the interview, Laborde says no. The Government Accountability Project will later interview Tans about the experience and report, “Tans found it unusual that NOAA public affairs would allow such extensive travel, at taxpayer expense, simply to listen in on a media interview and not report on the proceedings.” [Washington Post, 4/6/2006; Union of Concern Scientists and Government Accountability Project, 1/30/2007, pp. 34 ]

In its 2007 budget request, NASA proposes canceling or delaying a number of significant earth science programs that scientists consider critical to understanding global climate change. The Plain Dealer reports that these cutbacks are being made “in order to pay for human spaceflight projects.” [Plain Dealer (Cleveland), 5/28/2006; Boston Globe, 6/9/2006] The Bush administration has pledged that the US will launch manned space flights to the moon by 2020, and eventually to Mars.
(see January 11, 2004)

James E. Hansen, speaking before an audience at the New School university in New York, says that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) wants to implement a new rule requiring that minders be present for any media interviews with its scientists. “It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States,” he says. Hansen caused a stir in late January when he accused Bush administration officials of suppressing information on global warming and placing restrictions on his communications with the media (see After December 6, 2005). The officials were upset about a speech he had given on December 6, in which he said that commitments to short term profits were taking precedence over curbing greenhouse gases. He repeats this statement in his remarks during the panel discussion at New School. [New School, 2/10/2006 ; Washington Post, 2/11/2006] In his presentation, Hansen also says that the administration is misleading the public about the potential links between global warming and hurricane intensity.
He makes the charge that the “public, by fiat, received biased information” when “the NOAA took an official position that global warming was not the cause of hurricane intensification” (see November 29, 2005- December 2005). [New School, 2/10/2006 ]

Reporter Peter Lord of the Providence Journal calls the NOAA public affairs office and requests an interview with scientist Thomas Knutson, the author of a 2004 paper (see September 28, 2004) suggesting that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may increase the intensity of hurricanes. Lord speaks with public affairs officer Kent Laborde, who tells him that NOAA has discounted research linking global warming to more intense hurricanes. “What we’ve found is, if you look at a couple segments of science, observational or modeling, there is no illustrated link between climate change and hurricane intensity,” Laborde says. “We actually have periods of intensity followed by periods of lower intensity. We have evidence of periods going back to the 1930s. It follows a clear pattern.” When Lord says he would like to interview Knutson, Laborde asks, “What is the topic?” Lord says he wants to talk about Kerry Emanuel’s “theories linking climate change to worsening hurricanes.” Laborde responds, “Chris Landsea would be better. He’s an observational scientist.” Unlike Knutson, Landsea does not believe hurricane intensity is influenced by global warming. [Providence Journal, 3/26/2006; Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 79 ]

Jerry Mahlman, a retired NOAA scientist who is writing a book on the history of the NOAA, visits the agency’s David Skaggs Research Center. He later recalls that upon arriving at the lab he was “mobbed” by scientists wanting to discuss the “censorship.” [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 18 ]

Thomas L. Delworth, an NOAA scientist who works in the Climate Dynamics and Prediction Group, will later say that by this date, a quarter of his prospective interviews with journalists have fallen through because of delays in the agency’s approval process. He also says that one third of the reporters he usually deals with no longer request interviews with him on account of the delays. He estimates that a typical request takes 24 hours to process while interviews that are potentially more controversial take longer, sometimes as long as five or six days. [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 25-26 ]

Joellen Russell, a former GFDL research scientist who is now an assistant professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona, sends an email to NOAA public affairs officer Jana Goldman explaining why the NOAA should issue a press release on a paper he lead authored. Many of the coauthors are NOAA scientists. He writes: “Ron Stouffer asked me to contact you. He told me that you and Maria had discussed the following paper, ‘The Southern Hemisphere Westerlies in a Warming World: Propping the Door to the Deep Ocean.’ I am the lead author of this paper that describes the critical role of the Southern Ocean in the global climate response to increasing greenhouse gases. I have a number of GFDL [Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory] co-authors (Ronald Stouffer, Keith Dixon, Robbie Toggweiler, and Anand Gnanadesikan) and our study uses the latest GFDL coupled climate models to quantify the large and growing influence of the Southern Ocean on climate. Therefore, we think this paper is worthy of a press release.” But the request is denied. Goldman explains, “The lead author’s organization/agency usually takes the lead in issuing releases.” [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 30-31 ] In October, the NOAA will issue a press release on a study whose lead author is not a US government scientist. In that study, the conclusion is that hurricane activity is suppressed by dust clouds and that periods of intense hurricane activity seem to have taken place when there were fewer dust storms. (The implication being that dust storm scarcity, not global warming, may have caused the recent increase in hurricane activity) (see October 13, 2006).

Ronald Stouffer, senior research meteorologist at the NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, tells Tarek Maassarani of the Government Accountability Project that the number of interviews he has had with the US media have dropped to almost zero. He attributes this to the cumbersome approval process that a journalist must wait through before being permitted to interview a scientist. Even if an interview is approved, the approval often comes too late, after the reporter’s deadline for the story. Stouffer refers to the NOAA’s clearing process as a “pocket veto” since delaying an approval often produces the same result as turning down an interview request. Stouffer also tells Maassarani that European journalists are usually “shocked” when they learn that interview requests need to be cleared by the public affairs office. [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 23-24 ]

Screenshot of draft document [Source: Government Accountability Project] (click image to enlarge)In response to a number of questions for the record (QFRs) submitted by senators Daniel Inouye (D-HI) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) regarding an April 26, 2006 testimony on projected and past effects of climate change, scientists at NOAA submit a document of draft responses to an NOAA legislative affairs specialist for review. The document is ultimately reviewed by individuals at the EPA, Energy Department, White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, who suggest a number of changes. For example, the OMB suggests keeping the sentence, “The full range and magnitude of the biological and biogeochemical effects of ocean acidification are still so uncertain that a reliable and quantitative estimate of the likely socio-economic
effects is not yet possible,” but removing the sentence immediately following that: “However, healthy coral reef ecosystems are important to both the fisheries and tourism industries and negative impacts on these ecosystems could affect these industries.” According to the OMB, “[a]s written this seems to conflict with the factual first sentence of the paragraph, which adequately answers the question.” In another instance, the OMB recommends adding a sentence that attributes global warming to increasing water vapor, drawing from a quote taken out of context from an article written by scientists Thomas Karl and Kevin Trenberth. When NOAA scientist James Butler attempts to explain that the edit is not scientifically valid, the OMB insists on keeping the change. Finally, Karl himself enters the fray, recommending a change that the OMB accepts. The Government Accountability Project, which will obtain the draft document that shows the changes, comments, “These two examples show that, while federal climate scientists are occasionally able to correct distortions to scientific findings in congressional communication, political appointees can still introduce inaccurate information that goes unchecked.” [Union of Concern Scientists and Government Accountability Project, 1/30/2007, pp. 37, 80 ; Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 44-46 ]

A panel consisting of seven climate scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have completed a consensus report on the views of agency scientists concluding that global warming may have an impact on the intensity of hurricanes. The report is due to be released this month. But in an email sent to the panel’s chair, Ants Leetmaa, a Department of Commerce official says the report will not be released and needs to be modified so it is less technical. When this is reported in the journal Nature in September, the NOAA will deny that the report was blocked, insisting that the publication in question was just a two-page fact sheet about the issue. The agency says there were two reasons it wasn’t released: one, it wasn’t completed before the beginning of the annual hurricane season, and two, the agency cannot take an official position on a field of science that is changing so quickly. However Leetmaa notes that the draft did not take an official position of any kind; rather it just referred to the “current state of the science” [Associated Press, 9/27/2006; Giles, 9/28/2006]

Following the release of the film, An Inconvenient Truth, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a group funded in part by ExxonMobil, launches an advertisement campaign welcoming increased carbon dioxide pollution. “Carbon dioxide: They call it pollution, we call it life,” the ad says. [Competitive Enterprise Institute, 5/2006; New York Times, 9/21/2006]

The broadcast public relations firm Medialink Worldwide produces a video news release (VNR) titled, “Global Warming and Hurricanes: All Hot Air?” Medialink was hired to make the VNR by Tech Central Station, a project of the Republican lobbying and PR firm DCI Group. ExxonMobil, a client of the DCI group, gave Tech Central Science Foundation $95,000 in 2003 and specified that those funds be used for “climate change support.” The VNR features meteorologists Dr. William Gray and Dr. James J. O’Brien who deny there’s a link between global warming and hurricane intensity. Gray has said in the past that global warming is a “hoax,” while O’Brien is listed as an expert at the George C. Marshall Institute, which in 2004 received $170,000 from ExxonMobil. The VNR is aired by WTOK-11 in Meridian, Mississippi on May 31, 2006. The segment is re-voiced by the station anchor, Tom Daniels, who introduces the piece by saying, “Hurricane seasons for the next 20 years could be severe. But don’t blame global warming.” He does not disclose that the report was produced by a PR firm that was paid by an organization funded by ExxonMobil. [Center for Media and Democracy, 11/14/2006; Democracy Now!, 11/14/2006; San Francisco Chronicle, 11/15/2006]

Warren Washington, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, accuses the Bush administration of suppressing climate change data, limiting journalists’ access to government scientists, and rewriting news releases on global climate change. According to Washington, Bush administration officials are “trying to confuse the public.” He says these tactics are taking place at numerous federal agencies, including NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ), and the US Forest Service. NOAA spokesman Jordan St. John denies the allegations. “NOAA is an open and transparent agency,” he says. “It’s unfair to the people who work at this agency that this kind of characterization keeps being made. Hansen said it once (see After December 6, 2005), and it took on a life of its own and just keeps getting repeated.” [Rocky Mountain News, 6/8/2006]

Science academies from the G8, China, Brazil, India, and South Africa issue a statement urging G8 governments to remain committed to the climate change solutions agreed at the G8 summit in Scotland the year before. Scientists are worried that energy security concerns will push the issue of climate change off the agenda at the G8 summit in St. Petersburg that will be taking place from July 15-17. [Reuters, 6/14/2006]

A team of Russian and American scientists conclude in a study published in the journal Science that the melting of Siberia’s carbon-rich permafrost could result in the release of about 500 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the next 100 years. That would almost double the atmosphere’s current load of the greenhouse gas which currently stands at about 700 billion tons. When permafrost melts, it makes organic material available to microbes which convert much of the carbon in it into carbon dioxide. This process results in what is known as a “positive feedback” loop whereby the increased presence of greenhouse gases leads to more warming and consequently to the melting of more carbon-rich permafrost. Leading climate models do not factor in the melting of Siberia’s permafrost, which covers some 400,000 square miles, when trying to make predictions about climate change. Previous estimates of the amount of carbon contained in the permafrost have put the value much lower. “We have known [about] the permafrost in Siberia before,” explains atmospheric scientist Bala Govindasamy, “Previous estimates for global permafrost [are] between 200 and 400 [billion tons]. This study has found higher carbon content in the Siberian permafrost and estimates that the total global amount could be about 1,000 [billion tons].” This report “makes it kind of scary—it means there’s a form of climate risk that we really haven’t got a good handle on,” notes Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford. Another scientist, paleoclimatologist David Anderson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climate Prediction Center, tells the San Francisco Chronicle that carbon dioxide released from Siberia “could raise temperatures dramatically beyond the current projections. Second, it could raise the rate at which temperatures rise.” [Los Angeles Times, 6/16/2006; San Francisco Chronicle, 6/16/2006; Zimov, Schuur, and Chapin, 6/16/2006]

When Cornelia Dean of the New York Times contacts James Titus, EPA project manager for sea level rise, for an interview, he says he is no longer permitted to discuss such issues publicly. Instead, he refers Dean to the EPA public affairs office, which says it will not allow him to be interviewed on the record. Dean wants to interview Titus for an article she is doing on global warming and rising sea levels. In 2000, Titus wrote an essay titled “Does the US Government Realize That the Sea Is Rising?” The EPA redirects Dean to Bill Wehrum, the agency’s acting assistant administrator for air and radiation. He tells her: “The administration’s strategy for dealing with climate change is to continue to put significant resources into understanding climate change. The goal is to develop information that will be useful for local planners. This is about looking at coastal areas and assessing how those areas are used and then helping people with the question of how much protection they might want to provide for those areas if sea level continues to rise.” [New York Times, 6/20/2006; Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 37-38 ]

A National Academy of Sciences study concludes that the last few decades were warmer than any other comparable period in the last four centuries. The study’s findings are based on evidence from tree rings, boreholes, retreating glaciers, and other indicators of past surface temperatures. The study was commissioned by Congress in 2005 to investigate whether the claims made in a controversial 1998 climate study by climate scientist Michael Mann are true. That study had concluded that the climate is now warmer than any other time in the last 1,000 years. Mann had also reported in his study that the 1990s were the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year. The authors of the current study say they were unable to draw any solid conclusions about temperatures extending beyond the last 400 years for lack of reliable data. Nonetheless, they do agree that available evidence indicates that Mann’s conclusion regarding the last 1,000 years is indeed “plausible.” “Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th Century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium,” the report concludes. [National Research Council, 2006; National Academies, 6/22/2006; San Francisco Chronicle, 6/23/2006; BBC, 6/23/2006]

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) argues that “the present warming and associated glacier retreat are unprecedented in some areas for at least 5,200 years.” As evidence, it notes the widespread melting of mountain glaciers, the uncovering of plants that were buried thousands of years ago, and a change in the chemical isotopes of ice cores taken from seven mountain glaciers over the past 30 years, including the Huascaran and Quelccaya ice caps in Peru, the Sajama ice cap in Bolivia, and the Dunde and Puruogangri ice caps in China. According to the study’s authors, the ice samples also indicate that there was a sudden cooling of the climate five millennia ago. [Independent, 6/27/2006] Additional evidence of the sudden climate change has come from Mount Kilimanjaro; African lakes; Greenland and Antarctic ice cores, lead author Lonnie Thompson notes in an interview with the Washington Post. “There are thresholds in the system,” he says. “There is the risk of changing the world as we know it to some form in which a lot of people on the planet will be put at risk.” [Washington Post, 6/27/2006]

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) sends letters to scientists and economists offering to pay them $10,000 each for 500- to 10,000- word essays that provide a “policy critique” of the next report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due early next year (see February 2, 2007). The institute, which has received more than $1.6 million in contributions from ExxonMobil (see Between 1998 and 2005), also offers additional payments and travel expense reimbursement. The letters, written by Kenneth Green and Steven Hayward, accuse the UN panel of being “resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work.” It asks for articles that “thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs.” The letters set a December 15 deadline for the papers, but responses from recipient scientists prompt AEI to cancel the project. The institute had hoped to time the release of the scientists’ essays to coincide with that of the IPCC report. David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia describes the AIE effort as a “desperate attempt by an organization who wants to distort science for their own political aims.” Similarly, Ben Stewart of Greenpeace remarks: “The AEI is more than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration’s intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they’ve got left is a suitcase full of cash.” Green defends AIE’s campaign against the report, saying, “Right now, the whole debate is polarized. One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don’t think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy.” [Guardian, 2/2/2007; Reuters, 2/4/2007]

The Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) of Sedalia, Colorado, gives Patrick Michaels, a climatologist who disputes the consensus opinion that greenhouses gases are responsible for global warming, $100,000 and helps launch a fundraising campaign for him. Michaels had told Western business leaders the year before that he needed more funds to continue his research and writing. In a July 17 letter to 50 other utility companies, Stanley Lewandowski, IREA’s general manager, writes, “We cannot allow the discussion to be monopolized by the alarmists.” He requests that the other electric cooperatives collaborate on a campaign to discredit “alarmist” scientists and Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth. According to Lewandowski, one company has said it will contribute $50,000 to Michaels, while another plans to give money the following year. [Associated Press, 7/27/2006]

Congressmen Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Tom Davis (R-VA) send a letter to James L. Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) requesting routine documents concerning communications between CEQ and other government agencies and outside parties having to do with the issue of climate science. The letter asks that the documents be provided no later than August 1, 2006. Specifically, the two lawmakers say they want documents that relate to the following: “[CEQ’s former chief of staff Phillip] Cooney’s activities related to climate change;” “CEQ’s review of and suggested edits to materials produced by other federal agencies regarding climate change;” “Efforts by CEQ to manage or influence statements made by government scientists or experts to representatives of media regarding climate change;” “CEQ’s communications with other federal agencies regarding climate change science; and” “Contacts between CEQ and any nongovernmental party related to climate change.” [Waxman and Davis, 7/20/2006 ]

The White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) reportedly refuses to comply with a request (see July 20, 2006) from the House Committee on Government Reform for documents related to communications between CEQ and other government agencies and non-governmental parties on the issue of climate change. On January 30, 2007, Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) will explain: “When the White House resisted, we narrowed our request. When the White House resisted again, we again scaled back what had already been a reasonable request. And when the White House resisted a third time, we again tried to accommodate the president. In addition to repeatedly narrowing our request, we extended the deadlines we had suggested to the White House. But even after all those courtesies, we have received virtually nothing from this administration.” [US Congress, 1/30/2007 ; US Congress, 1/30/2007 ]

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) concludes that there is an 84 percent chance that human activity is responsible for rising sea surface temperatures (SST). Climate scientist Tom Wigley, one of the study’s authors, says data from 22 different computerized climate change models showed “exceptional correlation” between human activity and climate change. The only plausible explanation for the dramatic increase in sea surface temperatures is deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels. “There is less than a one percent chance that the changes in SST could be the result of non-human factors,” Wigley explains. The paper also finds that higher sea surface temperatures are increasing the frequency and intensity of storms in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. [Inter Press Service, 9/12/2006; Boston Globe, 9/12/2006; Santer et al., 9/19/2006]

The NOAA issues a press release on a study co-authored by Jason Dunion, a hurricane researcher with the agency’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory. The study finds that dust storms suppress hurricane activity. The authors say that periods of intense hurricane activity seem to have taken place when there were fewer dust storms, suggesting the possibility that dust storm scarcity, not global warming, may have caused the recent surge in hurricane activity. The lead author of the study was Amato Evan of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 10/13/2006; Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 31 ] Earlier in the year, the NOAA rejected a press release linking global warming to greenhouse gases because, according to the public affairs office, the “lead author’s organization/agency usually takes the lead in issuing releases.” (see April 10, 2006).

An anonymous public affairs officer tells the Government Accountability Project that political appointees in the NOAA have been instructing career employees in the agency’s public affairs office to closely monitor what scientists communicate to the media on the topic of global warming. Their jobs depend on it, he says. He says he must inform his superiors of any interview requests from major news outlets, provide them with minute details about the interview, and specify whether the interviewee is considered to be a “loose cannon” or someone who will “go along with the company line.” If it’s suspected that the scientist will say something that undermines the credibility of the administration, his bosses ask him to redirect the reporter to a different scientist more willing to toe the line. He might tell the reporter, “Oh, such and such is not going to be available, but I’ve got such and so.” In at least one instance, according to the anonymous public affairs officer, an appointee actually instructs him to silence a certain scientist (see (2004)). The public affairs officer also says that his bosses have been closely involved in the vetting of press releases. They require that he personally provide them with hardcopies of draft releases on “sensitive” issues, such as those mentioning “global warming,” “warming,” “melting,” and “glaciers.” He says he was instructed not to email any drafts to them. When the superiors disapprove of a certain press release, they tell him to inform the researchers that the release has been rejected because it is not news worthy, that there were already too many press releases on the issue, or “some other excuse.” In some cases, where rejecting a press release would be too conspicuous, political appointees have sought to undermine the press release by having another press officer repeatedly mark up the document with requests for changes and corrections in an effort to delay the release until it is too outdated to publish. [Maassarani, 3/27/2007, pp. 89-90 ]

Officials at NASA and the Department of Commerce confirm that the inspectors general of both agencies have begun investigations into whether the White House has sought to prevent government climate scientist from conveying their findings to the public. The investigations were prompted by a request from 14 Democratic senators in late September (see September 29, 2006). The inquiries are expected to be completed by early 2007. [Scientists Say Findings Were Suppressed, 11/2/2006]

The Bush administration imposes what reporter and author Charlie Savage will later call “unprecedented controls” on scientists working with the US Geological Survey (USGS), an agency that studies environmental issues such as global warming and endangered species. Now, USGS scientists must submit research papers and prepared speeches to White House officials for approval prior to dissemination. The rules also require the scientists to let the public affairs office know about “findings or data that may be especially newsworthy, have an impact on government policy, or contradict previous public understanding to ensure that proper officials are notified and that communication strategies are developed.” USGS scientists say that the restrictions mean that government officials are monitoring and censoring their work. “The explanation was that this was intended to ensure the highest possible quality research,” says Jim Estes, a marine biologist who has worked for USGS since the 1970s. “But to me it feels like they’re doing this to keep us under their thumbs.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 106-107]

When reporter Kitta MacPherson contacts the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for a story she is writing about the NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Plainsboro, New Jersey, she is told that she will be granted “unprecedented access” to the lab’s scientists. She interviews nine scientists for 30 minutes each. However a request to interview Richard Wetherald, a scientist who has complained about censorship (see September 26, 2002), is rejected, and her interview with scientist Ants Leetmaa is only permitted on the condition that a press official is present. [New Jersey Star-Ledger, 12/6/2006]

The National Climatic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that 2006 was the warmest year on record. Average temperatures in the US were 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than mean temperatures for the 20th century. Seven months were much warmer than average, and December 2006 was the fourth-warmest December on record. An NOAA news release acknowledges that the warming is being caused by human activity. “A contributing factor to the unusually warm temperatures throughout 2006 also is the long-term warming trend, which has been linked to increases in greenhouse gases,” it states. “People should be concerned about what we are doing to the climate,” says Jay Lawrimore, chief of NOAA’s climate monitoring branch in Asheville, NC. “Burning of fossil fuels is causing an increase in greenhouse gases and there’s a broad scientific consensus that [it’s] producing climate change.” [National Climatic Data Center, 1/9/2007; United Press International, 1/10/2007; New York Times, 1/10/2007]

The National Academy of Sciences releases a study finding that NASA’s earth science budget has declined 30 percent since 2000. NASA’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees a large portion of the government’s climate research, has been plagued with enormous cost overruns and schedule delays with its premier weather and climate mission. The report—two years in the making—warns that half of the scientific instruments on the country’s environmental satellites are expected to cease working by 2010. Among other recommendations, the study suggests that the government increase its spending on researching the potential impacts of climate change such as ice-sheet melting, sea-level changes, and extreme weather events; restore support for efforts to improve NASA’s “capability to observe natural hazards and environmental changes”; and fund other efforts that would improve weather forecasting. Co-chairs Berrien Moore III of the University of New Hampshire and Richard Anthes of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research tell the Washington Post that NASA needs about $500 million a year restored to NASA’s earth science program, “essentially a return to the budgets during the Clinton administration,” the Post notes. [Washington Post, 1/16/2007; National Academy of Science, 1/16/2007]

Six months after lawmakers asked (see July 20, 2006) the White House Council on Environmental Quality to provide them with documents related to its internal communications on climate change, the Bush administration releases nine documents. But the following day, Congressman Henry Waxman says the documents “add little to our inquiry. In some cases, they do not even appear to be records we were seeking.” [US Congress, 1/30/2007 ]

A survey conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Government Accountability Project (GAP) bolsters allegations that the Bush administration is pressuring climate scientists to produce material that does not contradict its position on global warming. The survey was distributed to 1,600 climate scientists at seven federal agencies. Of those, 279 responded. The survey found: Forty-six percent of the respondents indicated that they perceived or personally experienced pressure to remove the words “climate change,” “global warming,” or other similar terms from their writings. Forty-six percent said their writings had been changed or edited by a superior in a way that changed its meaning. Forty-six percent said they perceived or personally experienced new or unusual procedural requirements that impair climate-related work. Twenty-five percent of the respondents said they know of scientists who have actively objected to, resigned from, or removed themselves from a project because of pressure to change a scientific finding. 150 climate scientists said they personally experienced political interference in the past five years, for a total of at least 435 incidents. Seventy-eight percent of the scientists who indicated that their work involves controversial climate research said that they have personally experienced at least one incident of inappropriate interference with their work. Of those, more than one-quarter said they had experienced six or more such incidents during the last five years. Sixty-seven percent said their work environment has become less enjoyable over the last 5 years ago. This figure was the highest for scientists working at NASA (79 percent). [Union of Concerned Scientists, 1/30/2007 ; Reuters, 1/30/2007]

Jeremy Grantham, chairman of a Boston-based fund management company, in his quarterly letter to clients includes a commentary on the United States’ policy toward climate change, particularly that of the current administration. One of Grantham’s clients happens to be Vice President Dick Cheney. In his piece, titled “While America Slept, 1982-2006: A Rant on Oil Dependency, Global Warming, and a Love of Feel-Good Data,” Grantham writes, “Successive US administrations have taken little interest in either oil substitution or climate change and the current one has even seemed to have a vested interest in the idea that the science of climate change is uncertain.” Grantham embraces the conclusions of the latest IPCC report (see February 2, 2007), saying, “There is now nearly universal scientific agreement that fossil fuel use is causing a rise in global temperatures. The US is the only country in which environmental data is steadily attacked in a well-funded campaign of disinformation (funded mainly by one large oil company)” (see Between 1998 and 2005). If anyone is still sitting on the fence, he suggests considering Pascal’s Paradox—in other words, comparing the consequences of action vs. inaction if the IPCC’s conclusions are correct. Grantham, whose company manages $127 billion in assets, disputes the notion that going green would harm the US economy, noting that industrialized countries with better fuel efficiency have on average seen better economic growth than the US over the last 50 years. Instead of implementing a policy that would have increased fuel efficiency, the country’s “auto fleet fuel efficiency went backwards over 26 years by ingeniously offsetting substantial technological advances with equally substantial increases in weight,” he notes. “In contrast, the average Western European and Japanese cars increased efficiency by almost 50 percent.” He also writes that the US might have eliminated its oil dependency on the Middle East years ago had it simply implemented a “reasonable set of increased efficiencies.” If there were just 10 percent less cars on the road than there are today, and each one drove 10 percent fewer miles using vehicles that were 50 percent more efficient, US demand for oil would be 28 percent lower, he explains. If similar efficiency had been attained in other modes of transportation, the US would have been able to reduce its reliance on foreign oil by 38 percent completely eliminating its reliance on oil from Middle East, which currently accounts for only 28 percent of US oil imports. He also notes in his letter, which apparently was leaked to President Bush before publication, “Needless to say, our whole attitude and behavior in the Middle East would have been far different, and far less painful and costly. (Oil was clearly not the only issue, or perhaps even the biggest one in Iraq, but it is unlikely that US troops would have fought two wars had it been a non-oil country in, say, Africa or the Far East that was equally badly behaved.)” [Street, 2/5/2007; Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo, 2/5/2007]

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issues a summary of its fourth report concluding for the first time that global warming is “unequivocal.” The authors of the report also conclude that there is a 90 percent likelihood that greenhouse gases produced as a result of human activities have been the main cause of global warming since 1950. In its last report (see January 22, 2001), the panel made the same assessment, but with a confidence level of only 66 to 90 percent. The 20-page summary, meant for policymakers, will be followed by four technical reports that will be completed and published later in the year. The panel’s conclusions are based on “a three-year review of hundreds of studies of past climate shifts; observations of retreating ice, warming and rising seas, and other changes around the planet; and a greatly expanded suite of supercomputer simulations used to test how the earth will respond to a growing blanket of gases that hold heat in the atmosphere,” the New York Times reports. Partial list of conclusions - Global temperatures will increase 3.5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit if carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere attain levels twice that of 1750, before the Industrial Revolution. Concentrations of carbon dioxide have reached a level not seen during the last 650,000 years, and the rate of increase is beginning to accelerate. Even a moderate warming of the global climate would likely result in significant stress to ecosystems and change longstanding climate patterns that influence water supplies and agricultural production. Sea levels will likely rise between 7 and 23 inches by 2100 and continue rising for at least the next 1,000 years. “It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.” The panel expects that precipitation will increase at higher latitudes, while rainfall will likely decrease at lower latitudes. Semi-arid subtropical regions could see 20 percent less rain. Oceans will absorb billions of tons of carbon dioxide which will form carbonic acid, thus lowering the pH of seawater and harming certain kinds of marine life such as corals and plankton. If the level of greenhouse gases continues to grow, average temperatures by the end of the century could reach temperature not seen since 125,000 years ago when ocean levels were 12 to 20 feet higher than they are now. Much of that extra water is currently locked in the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, which are beginning to melt. While there is evidence that the glaciers and ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic could flow seaward far more quickly than current estimates predict, the climate change panel did not include this in its assessment because it is forbidden by its charter to engage in speculation. According to Michel Jarraud, the secretary general of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization, “the speed with which melting ice sheets are raising sea levels is uncertain, but the report makes clear that sea levels will rise inexorably over the coming centuries. It is a question of when and how much, and not if.” The harmful consequences of global warming can be lessened if governments take prompt action. Responses - Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, which administers the panel along with the World Meteorological Organization, says: “In our daily lives we all respond urgently to dangers that are much less likely than climate change to affect the future of our children. Feb. 2 will be remembered as the date when uncertainty was removed as to whether humans had anything to do with climate change on this planet. The evidence is on the table.” John P. Holdren, an energy and climate expert at Harvard, who is the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says the report “powerfully underscores the need for a massive effort to slow the pace of global climatic disruption before intolerable consequences become inevitable.… Since 2001, there has been a torrent of new scientific evidence on the magnitude, human origins and growing impacts of the climatic changes that are under way. In overwhelming proportions, this evidence has been in the direction of showing faster change, more danger and greater confidence about the dominant role of fossil-fuel burning and tropical deforestation in causing the changes that are being observed.” Richard B. Alley, one of the lead authors and a professor at Pennsylvania State University, says: “Policy makers paid us to do good science, and now we have very high scientific confidence in this work—this is real, this is real, this is real. The ball’s back in your court.” [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2/2/2007 ; New York Times, 2/3/2007; Independent, 2/3/2007]

Four hours after the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)‘s report on global warming (see February 2, 2007) finding that greenhouse gases are “very likely” the main cause of rising global temperatures, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman says in a statement, “We are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world, so it’s really got to be a global solution.” The United States, with about 5 percent of the world’s population, is responsible for roughly a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, more than any other country. [Associated Press, 2/2/2007]

The US Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska issues a memo to biologists and officials instructing them not to discuss climate change, polar bears, or sea ice unless they are designated to do so, when traveling around the Arctic. The memo, which bears the subject heading “Foreign Travel—New Requirement—Please Review and Comply, Importance: High,” states, “Please be advised that all foreign travel requests (SF 1175 requests) and any future travel requests involving or potentially involving climate change, sea ice, and/or polar bears will also require a memorandum from the regional director to the director indicating who’ll be the official spokesman on the trip and the one responding to questions on these issues, particularly polar bears.” [New York Times, 3/8/2007] The memo forbids the scientists to discuss climate change, polar bears, and sea ice, even if asked. A White House spokesman says the rule about having a single spokesman is merely an attempt to observe “diplomatic protocol,” but Deborah Williams, a former Interior Department official in the Clinton administration who later sees the memo, has a different view. To Williams, the rules sound like an attempt to impose political control over what government scientists can and cannot discuss with their peers. “This sure sounds like a Soviet-style directive to me,” Williams will observe. [Savage, 2007, pp. 107; New York Times, 3/8/2007]

Ford Motor Co. chief executive Alan Mulally acknowledges in a telephone press conference that global warming is happening and is being caused in part by auto emissions. “The vast majority of data indicates that the temperature has increased, and I believe the correlation and the analysis says that is mainly because of the greenhouse gases keeping the heat in. You can just plot it with the Industrial Revolution and the use of all of our resources,” he says. [Denver Post, 4/24/2007]

Some skeptics of global warming embrace a recent scientific study showing that ocean bacteria, not greenhouse gases and fossil fuels, are the primary cause of global warming. Unfortunately for the skeptics, the study is a hoax. The faux study, published in the “Journal of Geoclimatic Studies,” is laden with pseudo-scientific jargon “proving” that bacteria in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans emit at least 300 times more carbon dioxide than industrial activity, and apparently fools skeptics. A British scientist e-mails the report to 2,000 colleagues before realizing it was a spoof. A US scientist calls the report a “blockbuster.” [Reuters, 11/8/2007] The conclusion of the “study” is especially interesting to those who dispute global warming. The authors write, “[W]e recognize that in [overturning man-made climate change] we lay our careers on the line. As we have found in seeking to broach this issue gently with colleagues, and in attempting to publish these findings in other peer-reviewed journals, the ‘consensus’ on climate change is enforced not by fact but by fear. We have been warned, collectively and individually, that in bringing our findings to public attention we are not only likely to be deprived of all future sources of funding, but that we also jeopardize the funding of the departments for which we work.” [Note: The site hosting the spoof study has disappeared from the Web, but remains for now in Google’s cache.] [Institute of Geoclimatic Studies, 11/3/2007; Grist Magazine, 11/9/2007]Rush Limbaugh Taken In - Talk show host Rush Limbaugh tells his listeners of the study, apparently misunderstanding a warning from global warming skeptic Dr. Roy Spencer. While Spencer tells Limbaugh that the study is a spoof, Limbaugh tells listeners that the study proves global warming itself is a hoax. Spencer will apologize to Limbaugh for “not being clear.” [WeatherQuestions (.com), 11/11/2007] (Spencer is a scientific adviser for the “Interfaith Stewardship Alliance,” a “coalition of religious leaders, clergy, theologians, scientists, academics, and other policy experts committed to bringing a proper and balanced Biblical view of stewardship to the critical issues of environment and development.” [Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, 2005] Conservative blogger and global warming nonbeliever Neil Craig writes: “This could not be more damaging to man-made global warming theory.… I somehow doubt if this is going to be on the BBC news.” Hoax Exposed and Revealed - But real scientists quickly knock the study down. Deliang Chen, professor of meteorology at Sweden’s Gothenburg University, says, “The whole story is a hoax.” Two of the report’s supposed authors claim to be on the Gothenburg staff, but Chen says they are not students or faculty at his school. [Reuters, 11/8/2007] The research center cited by the article does not exist. Nor does the “Journal of Geoclimatic Studies,” which supposedly published the study. [WeatherQuestions (.com), 11/11/2007] The actual author of the spoof uses the pseudonym “Dr. Mark Cox” in an interview for Nature magazine’s blog, “The Great Beyond.” “Cox” says he wrote the spoof “to expose the credulity and scientific illiteracy of many of the people who call themselves climate skeptics. While dismissive of the work of the great majority of climate scientists, they will believe almost anything if it lends support to their position. Their approach to climate science is the opposite of skepticism.” He says the science proving global warming “could scarcely be clearer.” To a question asking what he would say to those taken in by his hoax, he replies, “More fool you.” [Nature, 11/9/2007]

The annual summit of the G-8 nations, an informal association of the Northern Hemisphere’s eight largest industrialized nations—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Britain, and the United States—concludes with what Vanity Fair will call “a tepid pledge to cut greenhouse gases by 50 percent by the year 2050.” President Bush lets his feelings about global warming and the US’s role in dealing with the issue show when, bidding farewell to his fellow heads of state, he says, “Goodbye from the world’s greatest polluter.” [Vanity Fair, 2/2009]

At least 19 Congressional Republicans, including House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), say that the Obama administration’s “cap-and-trade” proposal would cost American families $3,128 apiece in extra taxes. Misrepresenting an MIT Study - Boehner, McConnell, and their fellow Republicans base their claim on a 2007 MIT study. However, one of the study’s researchers, John Reilly, says that the Republicans are misreading it. According to Reilly, any tax burden on American families would not be felt until 2015, and the cost would be closer to $31 per person and $79 per year. The controversial claim originates in a Web posting by the House Republican Conference on March 24, which says: “The administration raises revenue for nationalized health care through a series of new taxes, including a light switch tax that would cost every American household $3,128 a year. What effect will this have on Americans struggling to pay their mortgages?” The St. Petersburg Times explains that the GOP’s “light switch tax” is a reference to President Obama’s proposal to tax power companies for carbon dioxide emissions, and allow companies to trade emissions credits among themselves. The program is called cap-and-trade. Republicans say the power companies would pass the tax on to electricity consumers, thus creating what they call a “light switch tax”—a term the Times calls misleading in and of itself. According to the MIT study, such a program would raise around $366 billion per year; Republicans divide that figure by the 117 million households in the US and get $3,128 in additional costs. Reilly says the Republicans are “just wrong. It’s wrong in so many ways it’s hard to begin.” Corrected by Study's Author - And, Reilly says, he told House Republicans so when they contacted him on March 20. “I had explained why the estimate they had was probably incorrect and what they should do to correct it, but I think this wrong number was already floating around by that time.” Republicans also claim that the Obama administration intends to use cap-and-trade money to pay for what they call “nationalized health care,” a claim refuted by details of the program released by Obama officials. (House Republicans later amend this claim to say that the program will pay for “increased spending.”) The Times notes that Boehner rebuffs a second attempt by Reilly to correct the claim that the program will cost American households over $3,000 per year. Further Falsehoods - Instead, nine other Republicans and the neoconservative Weekly Standard begin echoing the claim, with the Standard claiming that their figures show an annual cost of over $3,900 and accusing Reilly of “low-balling the cost of cap-and-trade by using some fuzzy logic.” Reilly says the Standard “just completely twisted the whole thing.… It’s false.” Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) takes the claim even further, saying that the huge annual tax would be levied on “every living American.” Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) restates the cost to $4,500 per family, and fellow House colleague Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) raises the rate to $4,560. Fox News correspondent Jim Angle reports Gregg’s claim without refutation or examination; on a later Fox broadcast, Gregg says, “every time you turn on your light switch, you’re going to be paying a tax.” Denouncing the Lies - Reilly has written to Boehner and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming to denounce the GOP’s distortion of the MIT study. Democratic Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) accuses the Republicans of “using an intentional misrepresentation of the study,” and says: “One of the things I find most distressing is their repeated falsehood about somehow a $3,000 increase in taxes on the American people based on a research done by MIT. They talked about it four times again last night!… The fact is that in the budget we have an opportunity for people who want to be legislators not communicators to help us allocate how those benefits will be utilized.” [St. Petersburg Times, 3/30/2009; Think Progress, 4/1/2009; Think Progress, 4/2/2009]

During a Congressional hearing on the US’s response to global warming, Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) says global warming is nothing more than a natural phenomonon, and the only response people need to make is to get some “shade.” Barton says: “I believe that Earth’s climate is changing, but I think it’s changing for natural variation reasons. And I think mankind has been adopting, or adapting, to climate as long as man has walked the Earth. When it rains we find shelter. When it’s hot, we get shade. When it’s cold, we find a warm place to stay. Adaptation is the practical, affordable, utterly natural reflex response to nature when the planet is heating or cooling, as it always is.… Nature doesn’t seem to adjust to people as much as people adjust to nature. Adaptation to shifts in temperature is not that difficult.” Think Progress reporter Satyam Khanna notes that Barton is nicknamed “Smokey Joe” for “his efforts on behalf of big polluters,” and last year “stalled Congressional efforts to decrease power plant emissions.” [Think Progress, 3/25/2009]

During a House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment hearing, Representative John Shimkus (R-IL) argues against a so-called “cap-and-trade” system to limit carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. Shimkus argues that the world’s ecology depends on carbon dioxide to survive: “It’s plant food.… So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere?… So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying.” The National Wildlife Fund responds to Shimkus’s statement by noting that the world’s plant life has sufferred tremendous damage from the inordinate amount of carbon dioxide and other gases resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. Liberal analyst Matthew Yglesias writes: “The point about our CO2 emissions is that the rate at which fossil fuel use puts new carbon into the atmosphere greatly exceeds the rate at which plants remove it. The aim is not to eliminate the CO2 from the atmosphere but to stabilize the amount of CO2, which means curtailing emissions to a level much closer to the rate at which plants consume it.” [Think Progress, 3/27/2009]

Representative Todd Akin (R-MO) tells his House colleagues that he does not want to be responsible for eliminating the seasons. In a speech opposing pending legislation to reduce carbon emissions, Akin calls the transition from winter to spring “good climate change,” and repeatedly conflates “climate” with “weather.” Global warming is a “comedy,” Akin says, and he asks who would “want to put politicians in charge of the weather anyways[?]” His fellow Republicans are more knowledgeable than Democrats on the subject, he implies, because they have “passed high school science.” Akin tells the House: “This whole thing strikes me, if it weren’t so serious, as being a comedy, you know. I mean, we just went from winter to spring. In Missouri when we go from winter to spring, that’s a good climate change. I don’t want to stop that climate change, you know. Who in the world want[s] to put politicians in charge of the weather anyways? What a dumb idea.… Some of the models said that we’re going to have surf at the front steps of the Capitol pretty soon. I was really looking forward to that.… We’ve been joined by another doctor, a medical doctor but also a guy who graduated from high school science as well, from Georgia, my good friend, Congressman [Phil] Gingrey.… So to have actually a guy who’s passed high school science is tremendously helpful.” The liberal news and analysis website Think Progress notes that in Akin’s home state of Missouri, “climate change has already caused growing conditions to shift and several species of birds common to the state have migrated northward. If global warming persists, climatologists have predicted that Missouri can expect ‘warmer temperatures, shorter winters, and an overall increase in rain and flooding.’” [Think Progress, 6/3/2009]

The press releases a confidential, “sensitive” memo from the American Petroleum Institute (API) detailing a plan to create “Astroturf” rallies at which industry employees posing as ordinary citizens will urge Congress to fight climate change legislation. The memo was obtained by the environmental group Greenpeace and sent to several reporters. It urges oil companies to recruit their employees for events that will “put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy,” and will urge senators to “avoid the mistakes embodied in the House climate bill.” The campaign is funded by a coalition of corporate and conservative groups called the “Energy Citizens” alliance, which includes the anti-health care reform group 60 Plus, the industry “grassroots” organization FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009), Grover Norquist’s Americans For Tax Reform, the American Conservative Union, and the National Taxpayers Union. API president Jack Gerard, who signed the memo, asks recipients to give API “the name of one central coordinator for your company’s involvement in the rallies.” And it warns, “Please treat this information as sensitive… we don’t want critics to know our game plan.” At least two major oil corporations, BP and Shell, are members of API and also belong to the US Climate Action Partnership, which supports the House legislation sponsored by Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA). API has spent over $3 million lobbying against that bill this year. API spokesman Bill Bush says his organization is not trying to deceive anyone. “I don’t think anyone’s hiding the ball about this,” he says. “I don’t think anyone’s trying to suggest that this doesn’t have anything to do with the oil and gas industry.” Greenpeace has asked API to reveal the member companies funding the Astroturf efforts. Shell Oil Company later informs reporters that it will not take part in the rallies. In a statement, the corporation says, “Shell’s position is not aligned with the consensus opinion of the API on Waxman-Markey, therefore Shell will not participate in the rallies.” [Gerard, 8/2009; TPM Muckraker, 8/14/2009]

Bill Sammon, the Washington managing editor for Fox News, sends an internal email instructing his journalists and producers to slant their coverage of climate change stories in favor of questioning the validity of climate change claims. Sammon’s order is given during a series of global climate change talks, and less than 15 minutes after Fox News correspondent Wendell Goler told viewers that the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) had announced that 2000-2009 was “on track to be the warmest [decade] on record.” Sammon’s email says in part: “Given the controversy over the veracity of climate change data… we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.” The email also comes amidst a steady promotion by the network of the so-called “Climategate” scandal, which hinges on misrepresentations of emails sent between climate scientists and supposedly casts critical doubts on the science behind the claims of climate change and global warming. Ultimately, all independent inquiries will clear the accused scientists of misconduct and manipulation, though these reports will receive less attention from Fox. And, though Sammon portrays his directive as an attempt to be fair and balanced, the “debate” is largely in the media, and fueled by conservative politics and by corporations and investors that would be impacted by regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. No national or international scientific body disputes that global warming is caused by human activities, and it is the consensus view of the vast majority of the world’s climate scientists that greenhouse gas emissions are the cause of the rise in the Earth’s average temperature since the 19th century. Goler had noted during his broadcast that in spite of “Climategate” claims, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) prove that the climate is indeed heating up due to a man-made increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Despite the facts, minutes after Goler’s report, Sammon sends his email to the staffs of Fox News’s “straight” news shows and others, ordering them to report that claims of human-caused climate change are controversial. That evening, news anchor Bret Baier introduces another report by Goler by saying in part that as “Climategate-fueled skeptics continued to impugn global warming science, researchers today issued new and even more dire warnings about the possible effects of a warmer planet.” After Goler’s evening report, Baier tells viewers that “skeptics say the recordkeeping began about the time a cold period was ending in the mid 1800s and what looks like an increase may just be part of a longer cycle,” and runs a clip by American Enterprise Institute scholar Kenneth Green impugning the credibility of climate change science. And a few minutes later, correspondent James Rosen falsely claims that climate scientists “destroyed more than 150 years worth of raw climate data” in order to promote the theory of climate change. [Media Matters, 12/15/2010]Sammon Previously Manipulated Fox News Reporting - Less than two months ago, Sammon ordered journalists and producers to use the term “government option” instead of “public option” to describe a specific health care proposal by Senate Democrats, as his preferred term had been shown to be less favorable to that proposal (see October 27, 2009 and After).

Michael Beard. [Source: MinnPost]Michael Beard, a Republican state representative from Minnesota and an eight-year veteran of the Minnesota House Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee, advocates resuming coal mining in his state. His reasoning: God has created a planet that provides unlimited natural resources. “God is not capricious. He’s given us a creation that is dynamically stable,” he tells a reporter. “We are not going to run out of anything.” Beard is drafting legislation that would overturn Minnesota’s moratorium on coal-fired power plants. He says that God will not allow humans to destroy the planet, no matter what they do. He recalls working on his family farm in Pennsylvania, which he says was mined three times for coal and now produces barley, wheat, and pine trees. “Did we temporarily disrupt the face of the earth? Yes, but when we were done, we put it all back together again.” He continues: “It is the height of hubris to think we could [destroy the earth].… How did Hiroshima and Nagasaki work out?” he asks, referring to the two Japanese cities destroyed by atomic bombs in World War II. “We destroyed that, but here we are, 60 years later and they are tremendously effective and livable cities. Yes, it was pretty horrible. But, can we recover? Of course we can.” Beard’s thesis is at odds with most climate scientists, who say that burning coal results in severe and perhaps irreparable harm to the planet, and contributes to widespread human suffering. According to columnist Dan Shelby, “Most of them are convinced that there is a point at which we will never be able to put it all back together again.” John Abraham, a professor of thermal sciences, writes a response to Beard’s statements noting the flaws in Beard’s reasoning. Beard tells Shelby that he reads a lot about science, and cites a number of conservative blogs as his sources. His primary source is Dr. Patrick Michaels, who has admitted that he receives the bulk of his funding for research from fossil fuel producers. Shelby writes: “It is understandable. Mike Beard is a free-market conservative and pro-business. No one who calls himself those things can afford global warming to be true. There is a political belief that solving global warming will destroy American business. American business deplores government interference. Global warming regulation and legislation requires governments to act.” Both Abraham and Beard have expressed a desire to open a dialogue on the subject. [MinnPost, 2/15/2011; Huffington Post, 2/16/2011]

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